5 World Cuisines You Should Be Paying More Attention to

A decent chef will be competent in a few different cuisines.  A good chef will be well versed in most cuisines.  On the other hand, a great chef will be quite good in preparing most of the world’s great cuisines.  As a chef, there are some cuisines that you should definitely keep your eye on and learn about.

Any chef looking to be viewed as a worldly and well-rounded chef needs to make sure that he or she is familiar with a multitude of cuisines.  Not knowing could make the difference between being seen as a professional or being seen as a novice.

French Cuisine Is a Must

Let’s face it; a chef that doesn’t know much about French cuisine is likely to be perceived as being like an auto mechanic that doesn’t understand how motors work.  Oh sure, you can get by without knowing much about French cuisine, but real food heavyweights and professionals will wonder what on earth is wrong with you.  When chefs are educated, French cuisine is taught as one of the fundamentals.  Once you know the basic cooking styles of French, you will find that they have applications towards preparing all kinds of dishes.  If you don’t want people thinking you can only flip burgers, then you better have your French cuisine down.

Chinese Cuisine

In the coming decades, everyone will be learning more about China as the country industrializes and modernizes.  The odds are quite good that there will also be an increased interest in Chinese cuisine as well.  No doubt being able to incorporate and understand Chinese cuisine will add a serious tool to your cooking toolkit.  Chinese cooking techniques to master include stir-frying, steaming, red stewing, and deep frying. Chinese cooking also uses a different set of equipment such as woks and bamboo steamers. Chinese cuisine is very diverse and incorporates an impressive array of spices. When the food is properly prepared it can be visually striking.  In a word, this is a cuisine you need to know.

A Study in Spices: Indian Cuisine

If you want to understand spices, then you might want to learn more about Indian cuisine.  Indian cuisine incorporates a wide range of spices and often in a subtle fashion.  While curry may be the spice most often associated with Indian cuisine, there are a wide array of other spices that are used in the cuisine with great frequency including ginger, cloves, nutmeg, mint, chilies, cardamom, mustard seeds, and cumin, to name just a few.

Italian Cuisine Is Always a Hit

There is no way around it; Italy has made a massive contribution to food.  A chef armed with a few good Italian dishes is a chef that can whip up some wonderful creations.  Italian cuisine excels in taking what looks to be a series of relatively basic ingredients and creating works of art and culinary wonders.  Extra points must be given for the creativity that this cuisine shows using typically humble ingredients.  Italian food also varies by region, so there is much to be learned from examining the types of food that originate from different parts of Italy.  Like many of the other great cuisines of the world, Italian cuisine makes great use of herbs. Basil, marjoram, garlic, and oregano tend to be the stars in Italian cooking.

Japanese Cuisine, How Can You Not Include It?

While it is extremely tough to limit our selections of cuisine to just five, it is impossible not to include Japanese cuisine.  Japanese cuisine beats out some of its deserving competitors due to its creativity and artfulness.  How can the sushi roll not impress?  For its extraordinary level of creativity and contribution of balance to our list, Japanese cuisine is a winner!